Ian Cushing

Our CDT is based in the Edinburgh Futures Institute – the University of Edinburgh’s brand new hub for research, innovation and teaching focused on socially just artificial intelligence and data.

Please share!

We have a number of fully funded PhD studentships in "Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing". I'm a possible supervisor & I'd be keen to support projects on sociolinguistics-AI, e.g., accent bias in AI, language+gender/sexuality+AI.

www.responsiblenlp.org

it takes a long time to socialise most undergraduate students out of the idea that there is an ‘academic language’ they must conform to, but once they unlearn this ideology then their writing becomes better and more powerful than it ever was before 🌸

"Neoliberal school, academisation, scripted curricula, standardized pedagogies, teacher surveillance, and the global industry of deficit thinking."

"The seed of the word gap lies in the mid-90s academic knowledge production, from where it was grown and cultivated..." "it appealed to policy makers because of how it shifted blame onto marginalized individuals and absolved state responsibility..." "it offered digestible headlines for journalists invested in moral panic narratives..." "it seemingly offered school leaders a perennial solution for educational injustices on a plate."

"Many teachers...are doing what they can to reject a pervasive narrative that communities experiencing systemic inequality are simply in need of more words and better words."

The linked article below from @iancushing.bsky.social provides a linear explanation of the critique through an international lens.

The argument is that the WG is a red herring that distracts from the neoliberal education reforms ushered in during the 1990s.

e-space.mmu.ac.uk/641609/8/Rea...

here it is! :) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

thanks so much Arlette, i hope you are well :) I was teaching about your amazing work just yesterday!

We're hosting Lavender Languages from 2-4 September 2026. Save the date! Plenaries and a formal announcement to be follow shortly...

thanks so much alberto, hope you enjoy it :)

Looks great! Adding it to my to-read list.

new article published open access in Reading Research Quarterly 💫

Follow the word gap: the social life of a deficit concept
doi.org/10.1002/rrq....

i trace how deficit ideologies associated with the 'word gap' get reproduced - and rejected - in teacher education and schools.

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i hope this article gives hope to any teachers who are confronted with ideologies of the 'word gap' in their schools. despite the stubbornness of this deficit concept, there are always spaces for resistance 💕 ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Rt Hon Keir Starmer MP Prime Minister Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP Foreign Secretary Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office 24th September, 2025   Dear Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, I am writing to you with urgency regarding the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), which is currently attempting to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza. The flotilla is made up of 52 boats, carrying humanitarian supplies and peace activists determined to support civilians facing unimaginable suffering. Reports have already emerged of explosions, unidentified objects being dropped near the vessels, drones circling overhead, and communications being jammed. These are deeply concerning developments. We know from past experience that when Israel smears peace activists with unfounded claims of links to Hamas, it is often a precursor to violent attacks. The UK Government must make it absolutely clear that these boats, carrying only aid and peaceful activists, must be treated safely and in line with inte

I’ve written to Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper demanding urgent action to ensure the safety of the Global Sumud Flotilla. 52 boats carrying aid and peace activists to Gaza.

The UK must act to assure their safety.

Israel is committing a genocide. All eyes are on this flotilla.

follow the thing methodologies normally trace the global flows of food products. here i use that methodology to trace the global flow of an idea - the word gap - and how teachers get positioned as consumers who have the ability to both reproduce and resist dominant ideologies about language.

ah thanks Clare :)

A compelling article by @iancushing.bsky.social

Schools don't have to subscribe to language deficit views.

In one school a leader 'had run whole-school training on asset-based pedagogies, which included a sharp critique and rejection of dominant word gap narratives.'

thanks so much Barbara :)

A brillliant, fascinating article by @iancushing.bsky.social about the word gap concept - but also about the whole ecology of our current education system, uncovered by tracing the experiences of one teacher and what these reveal about the system as a whole.

The Word Gap ™️ is something most teachers learn by osmosis. Given that what we think it means is not correct, we need to unlearn it, and dig at the biases that made it so attractive and idea in the first place.

thanks :)

A really great read about the tyranny of the "word gap"; like a "zombie statistic", it refuses to die, despite its troubling & misleading origins. The article reminds me of www-tandfonline-com.soton.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.... which shows how such thinking plays out in practice.

new article published open access in Reading Research Quarterly 💫

Follow the word gap: the social life of a deficit concept
doi.org/10.1002/rrq....

i trace how deficit ideologies associated with the 'word gap' get reproduced - and rejected - in teacher education and schools.

🙌💫💫

💜 thank you!

what does ‘misbehaviour’ sound like? in new open access work i ask this question in the context of school discipline policies, looking at how ideologies of ‘im/proper language’ and ‘im/proper behaviour’ coalesce and get co-constructed with one another. doi.org/10.1080/0962...

And by explicitly rejecting 'behavior as communication', the deficit framing of 'misbehaviour' precludes any curiosity or empathy about why kids with developing brains & bodies might disengage, intentionally or not, with systems designed by adults to serve the obscure purposes of adult society.

this

100% COMPLIANCE

a large circle with the word 'misbehaviour' in it. around the circle are the following phrase: non-standard grammar; slang; informal language; basic vocabulary; inarticulate; absence of politeness markers; mumbles; interrupts; not silent; does not retain eye contact; deviates from scripts; non-academic language; incomplete sentences; loud

in analysing 563 behaviour policies from the 34 largest multi-academy trusts in England, i show how 'misbehaviour' is associated with a constellation of linguistic features - these are of course not empirically connected, but ideologically connected.

Improving prisons – Leading prison landings: The Unlocked guide to jailcraft It’s hard to become good at a job. It’s even harder in frontline, high-pressure, high-risk roles. We can learn from effective colleagues. But doing so is tricky. Frontline public servic…

few things in life are inevitable but one of the most inevitable things has to be Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion being exported from schools to prisons. 🤷‍♀️ improvingteaching.co.uk/2025/09/07/i...